The Myth of the Communist Witch Hunt: McCarthyism and the so-called End of History

It has become a point of consensus in American historical understanding that the efforts of conservatives to rid the country of communists in the early Cold War were part of an irrational crusade against an imagined enemy. “Reds under the bed” are jovially referred to. The chief protagonist and poster child is of course Joseph McCarthy, the Senator from Wisconsin, who is depicted as a delusional and vicious drunkard. Artistic depictions of the era have been influential, most notably Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Miller’s dramatization of the Salem Witch Trials has been so pervasive that the conservatives’ search for communists is now most commonly referred to as ‘a witch hunt’. The underlying assumption here is that the danger posed by communism was about as real as that posed by imaginary black magic. Though Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953, this interpretation gained strength in light of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Fukuyamas of the world concluded that the end of history had arrived and that capitalism had triumphed; given that socialism now appeared to be a system that was ultimately unsustainable, what were they really worrying about?

This historical interpretation was propagated by liberals for two purposes. Firstly, it was a means with which to critique their political opponents. In part it borrowed from the ideas of historian Richard Hofstadter, author of “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” an essay that essentially concluded that to be a conservative was nothing short of a psychologically diagnosable condition rooted, of course, in paranoia. Secondly, while maligning the Republicans for purging communists — or those “good Americans” who were not “guilty” of being communists — it dismissed socialist thinking in the same breath, treating it as a theory that should be taken about as seriously as nudism, veganism, or scientology.

All of this fails to fully grasp the realities of the early Cold War. By 1950 vast swathes of the more developed parts of the world had socialist governments. No country that had successfully overthrown capitalism had ever reverted back, and the idea that this would occur did not seem very plausible. At the same time most accounts of developments in the Soviet Union that had appeared in English since the 1930s were very impressive. First hand witnesses such as Walter Reuther, later the head of the United Auto Workers, told of a country that was transforming from a backwater into an industrial behemoth at a pace simply never seen before. All information from the Soviet Union told of a rival economic system that consistently outperformed the capitalist economies.

By the post-war era there were signs that the USSR was at least technologically equal, if not superior, to the United States. After the United States bombed Hiroshima in 1945 it only took four years for the Soviets to successfully test their own nuclear device. By the early 1960s the contrast was even starker. In 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first human to enter into outer space. The US responded not with a capitalist solution — space exploration could never be justified on grounds of profit — but by following the Soviet model of mass-government investment into the aerospace program.

While images of breakdowns in the American social system were being transmitted to news stations across the globe, of black civil rights protesters being chased by dogs and blasted to the ground with fire hoses, the USSR appeared to be the foremost producer and a state that that distributed the rewards of development evenly and not according to class. In April 1961, the month of Gagarin’s successful mission, 7% of Americans were unemployed. Nobody in the Soviet Union found themselves looking for work. Full employment had been achieved.

Yuri Gagarin orbits the Earth, much to the dismay of Cape Canaveral:“To Keep Up, U.S.A. Must Run Like Hell”

There were, at the same time, many active communists in the United States. Not imagined communists. Real communists. Many laborers were members of communist-controlled unions in key areas of the economy: the Pacific Coast dockworkers, the electrical, radio and machine workers, and the manufacturers of farm equipment. While many were forced out by the CIO in the wake of the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, they did not simply disappear. Studies of the CIA since the Cold War have demonstrated the success of the Soviet Union in infiltrating the intelligence services, and not only leaking reams of confidential information, but also sabotaging countless operations. The CIA, over the course of its entire history, was utterly ineffective in its efforts to cultivate sources within the KGB. The standard historical narrative has treated Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed in 1953 for leaking information to the Soviet Union, as an anomaly, an odd couple who were not representative of a larger hidden agenda. The only thing that was anomalous about them was that they were caught.

In the light of this information it is preposterous to suggest that socialism held an appeal equal to black magic or, as was suggested in recent years by George Clooney in his film Good Night and Good Luck, Islamic Jihadism. While the odd troubled teenager may find witchcraft a source of fascination, and the occasional immigrant may take Islam a step too far, socialism offered a competing and compelling vision of society. The conservatives were acting wholly rationally in seeking to stigmatize socialism and criminalize socialists. They were acting out of a sense of self-protection based on an understanding of who it was that threatened them most. Among McCarthy’s alleged crimes was his charge that an investigation should be held to reveal the presence of communists within the departments of State and Defense. Why would we presume that there were not communists working within both departments when they had successfully infiltrated every other institution within the United States?

Communist regimes killed 100000000 people during the 20th century! The U. S. S. R. is no more. The American Communist Party was controlled and funded by the U.S.S.R. The free world won the Cold War, thanks in part to
Ronald Reagan, who was elected by the working class in the U.S. !
Read The Black Book Of Communism to understand the true consequence of Marxism in the 20th century.

This is all sounding a little revisionist, to me. To imply that “liberals” have propagated a myth to serve their own ends sounds liker personal bias, not historical fact. As a historian, I know for a fact that McCarthy and his peers weren’t motivated by genuine fears or verifiable evidence.

If they were, they wouldn’t have chosen to focus on the entertainment industry and labor leaders, people whom they considered undesirable but had no evidence against. They also wouldn’t have made trumped up claims about people in the media who chose to question their methods or pursuits. This was a campaign aimed at combating tendencies they considered un-American, not a controlled or intelligent response to a real problem.

This is the source of the so-called “myth” about McCarthy, and it’s not just liberals who condone it. Even his political allies, such as President Eisenhower, were glad to be rid of him. Saying now, decades later that they were in the right or the victims of bias seems like little more than an attempt by conservatives to rehabilitate his image and make what he did somehow acceptable.

Interesting comments. Far-right, extremely conservative types are nuts as I mentioned in my earlier comments. I think the right-wing leaders are more likely to be opportunists who really have no ideology other than accumulating ever more wealth and power, but as I take a look at the Republican politicians these days I have to wonder; then again, of course, the politicians are not the real source of power.

My understanding has been that McCarthy was kind of a nut-job and overreached. When he finally went after real centers of power, like the military, they crushed him. What I take from this article is that, although perhaps McCarthy did not intelligently and effectively combat communist subversives that of course did exist, from a reactionary point of view it was entirely logical and necessary to fight against their ideological opposites/opponents. The far-right prefers to use hard power – brute force and repression; the center-right (liberals) prefer to use soft power like co-optation and propaganda – they think that works better and I think they’re right. McCarthy just starting looking like a clown and was doing more harm than good from an elite point of view.

I think the point that Mr. Skull is driving at isn’t about McCarthy himself (who, yes, was a bit nutty, and who undoubtedly was engaged in a political power-play), but rather about how McCarthy is thought of today, in light of post-Cold War American capitalist triumphalism. Remember, it was only AFTER the events of 1989-1991 that, suddenly, it was common knowledge on the street (and in high-school textbooks) that communism was something to be treated as a big joke, that East European socialism was INEVITABLY bound to collapse, that Marx was a fool (rather than an enemy), and that the neo-liberal End of History was upon us and HAD BEEN all along (even if we didn’t know it yet). The real issue is American/capitalist hubris after 1989, and in this liberals and conservatives are identical, although I can see why this article would ruffle the feathers of the former more than the latter.

Another great article from Selecting Stones! Of course you’re right, the conservatives were acting rationally when they sought to expose and eliminate communists, but I’d like to point out that there is a case to be made that very conservative people (not necessarily leaders, but the conservative followers) do suffer from a type of mental illness. It’s also helpful to understand that liberal democrats are also quite conservative and becoming more so all the time.

This mental illness theory is laid out by a psychologist in this free online book called, “The Authoritarians”. It’s well worth the read and very interesting; it will make a lot of things clear about these types of people. In a nutshell, the theory says that these folks are mentally compromised, paranoid, easily induced to fear and hostility and they are not capable of changing their minds. Find the book here: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

What a disturbing marginalization. While I may not think my ideological opposites are correct in their approach, I don’t have the audacity to suggest it is because they are mentally unstable, immune to reason and as easy to influence as drunk sheep. Your startling lack of understanding for your political opposites is frightening to say the least.

Perhaps you might reconsider starting from this point; “All people are intelligent and responsible.” Then on an individual basis you can amend that starting point to suit the person, rather than issuing a general marginalization of an entire group of people simply because they do not share your point of view of the correct solution to a problem.

The only people who have political enemies are those who chose to be someone’s political enemy. We have a fantastic capacity for cooperation, as human beings, it is one of our better traits. It is in fact prejudice like this that leads to wars and oppression. The thought that “I am right, anyone who doesn’t agree with me must be wrong, therefore they are damaged in some way” is the spark that ignites a dictator upon the world.

All people are intelligent and responsible?! I only wish that were true. Have you ever tried talking to deeply conservative people about politics? Look, just read the book I hyperlinked above. It’s by a psychologist and he makes an excellent case. Being diplomatic he may not have actually called it a mental illness, but he sure made it sound like a mental illness. Also, the main point to understand is that it’s not the ideology that makes these people mentally ill, per se; it goes deeper than than. In fact, the author suggests that the “authoritarian follower” character trait (to put it nicely) can transcend the traditional ideological divide between what is thought of as Left and Right-wing politics. In North America, however, most of these folks are going to be your typical, conservative Republican or Tea Party types.

A part of me respects your idealism and willingness to embrace those with diametrically opposing viewpoints. It’s cool to try and reach out to some of these folks, but it’s also naive to believe that most of them will change their minds. Some people really do not share our values of solidarity and equality (I’m guessing you are a Leftist/Socialist as well) and have been brainwashed beyond repair. For example: the bourgeoisie, the vast majority of them, are not and will never be interested in a fair and just society. Anyway, please check out the book; it’s a quick and easy read. It’s free online. Here it is again: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

Ok, you’d like to use a free book by “a psychologist” as proof that the working theory of starting from “All people are intelligent and responsible” and amending it on a case by case basis is flawed, naive and wrong. I will see your one book written by a psychologist with a philosophical doctorate, explaining how conservatives are really just mentally unstable and raise you TWO books written by known doctors explaining how Liberals are mentally unstable. One is a prominent psychologist the other is a nutritionist. Given that succinct points are made all around, who’s right?

I’m familiar with Dr. Bob Altemeyer Ph.D of the University of Manitoba, Canada. I’m also familiar with his work on 1st year Manitoba students sex lives in “Sex and Youth.” Something he has studied for more than 20 years…Yes, I know who he is and no, I don’t need to consider his book on how an entire group of people should be marginalized and dismissed because he doesn’t like their point of view any more than I consider the above two doctors books valid sources on political “rivals.”

You are an impressively accurate example of the kind of person you erroneously attempt to generalize your political opposites as. No, I’m not a socialist or a leftist, I’m a human being, like most people. That someone doesn’t think like me, doesn’t mean they are “brainwashed” or brain damaged. It simply means we are, as the vast majority of people are, different. That, for example, you think anyone who doesn’t see the world the same way you do is mentally handicapped does not mean I feel you are mentally handicapped because you don’t see things the way I do. Though, by your definition it would mean exactly that.

In conclusion, sir, you’ve issued a terribly offensive and wildly prejudiced marginalization and expressed no desire to cooperatively seek solutions or discuss rationally anything of importance.

As a side note, yes, I have spoken with and speak frequently with “deeply conservative” people as I do, “deeply liberal,” socialist and capitalist ideologues. As anyone, who seeks to understand the best methods for humanitarian resolution should consider doing if they care to call themselves an intellectual or a human being.

Understanding all sides of an issue is essential in finding the best solution or achieving total comprehension. Doing anything else is weakly and blindly grasping in the dark at understanding. How can anyone claim to understand something they can’t be bothered to fully consider?

If the point of you talking to those of diametrically opposed viewpoints is to change their minds, you are not considering issues or thinking about anything.

The point of discussing is to change your own mind, or affirm for yourself your point of view. It is not to “change someones mind.” We discuss to learn, we learn to change, we change to grow, we grow to make the world better. You are the only person who can change your mind. I can not, Dr. “Whomever” can not, your ideological opposites can not. Change as the cliche’ says, can only happen from within.

Damn son, I must have really hit a nerve. Wow! If you think singing kumbaya with people of vastly different political beliefs and values is going to magically transform the world and get these folks to cooperate in some grand humanitarian project, then all I have to say is you are living in a fantasy world. By the way, If you want to provide evidence that liberals are mentally ill I might agree since they are also quite conservative.

The bottom line is this: If you feel no hostility towards scumbags who are racist, sexist and, for lack of a better word, “classist”, then I can’t find common cause with you. For one thing, I believe those who perpetrate a socio-economic system that allows homelessness is a crime justifying the most horrible vengeance the mind can summon up. If you can make peace with monsters like that, then we must remain enemies. Yours is a pathetically safe and spineless position to take; one that will never confront, much less defeat, entrenched power. Your position is a sell-out and I perceive that you are a bourgeois. We Socialists demand freedom for the working class and all of the oppressed and we are determined to get it by any means necessary. At the very least we are not afraid of hurting some feelings in the pursuit of an unquestionably righteous cause. Freedom! Equality! Solidarity!

How sad you must be. I mean that sincerely, what a miserable dull world bereft of joy and wonder you must live in. You, I can liken to an infant, flailing blindly and ineffectually at a circling wolf. As much danger to the wolf as the grass he treads upon. To yourself and any who might emulate you, you are the greatest enemy anyone could know. At any moment your blind flailing could cause you to fall and break your own neck.

I doubt you’ll understand the analogy anymore than you’ve displayed understanding for anything we’ve discussed. Or rather, I’ve discussed and you’ve ranted mindlessly grasping at imaginary ghosts all around you. This I find the most sad, your quite obviously intelligent enough to be dangerous to yourself, which is no small thing at all.

As I said before, you serve as a perfect example of the person you describe, perhaps this is why you hate yourself so very much and thus others. I suggest working through this, but you won’t listen, you’ll scoff, wrinkle your face and laugh at how “off base” and “naive” I am. It’ll make you feel better about all of this, justified, worldly, intelligent. It will be an illusion, but you’ll feel better all the same. How terribly unfortunate, I hope someday you come to comprehend the point of everything I’ve said here, that you can not fight what you don’t understand. You can not defend against what you can not comprehend and you can not defeat what you know nothing about. Not all courage requires leaping from foxholes, one of the most difficult kinds of courage is exploring where you might be wrong.

I needn’t comment on your imaginary foes, they are just that, figments of your imagination. You see enemies wherever you look and so long as you see enemies to fight instead of concepts to understand, you can’t win your little war. You can’t win because you don’t know what your fighting, your too busy looking for people to fight so you can’t see the ideas behind the people and therefore can never understand how to win. Maybe someday you’ll understand, I hope so, at your hate-filled core you have a spark of righteousness, a desire for a better world. You lack only the will to understand how to achieve it and the direction that understanding your “enemy” brings to the table. Without these, you will remain that infant, blindly in fury flailing at the wolf while he circles waiting patiently while you wear yourself out.

I’ll leave you with a final thought, I see no further point in our exchange, as I said before, only you can change yourself. I don’t advocate acquiescence, I advocate understanding as a weapon against the “evils” of the world. Consider this carefully, I know what you believe, therefore I know who you associate with, who your likely to vote for, who your likely to donate money too, what causes I can bring up to compel you to action and what books or people you will respond best too. Does knowing what buttons to push give me any power over you? What are my buttons? What is my political party? Who will I listen too most? What cause can you invoke that you can say without a doubt I will feel compelled into action for? You don’t know, because you haven’t bothered to try and understand me. You’ve simply condescended my point of view and dismissed it out of hand, marginalizing and rationalizing it as you went. “Your just a coward, you don’t do things like me, so you must be my enemy,” has been your mantra. Perhaps now your starting to understand how to really win? Getting an inkling? If not, nothing else I say will make any difference to you, you will remain “flailing,” keep doing so though and eventually, the wolf will get you.

I understand I gave you my “final thought” however, I felt terribly guilty about not outlining this for you.

“If you want to provide evidence that liberals are mentally ill I might agree since they are also quite conservative”

“It’s well worth the read and very interesting; it will make a lot of things clear about these types of people.”

I did give you evidence, I then explained the evidence was as ridiculous as Dr. Altemeyer’s. What I found particularly frightening was that you don’t seem to understand even what your saying. Dr. Altemeyer is a self professed liberal, he is heavily referenced by liberal democrats. If, as you believe people should be generalized and not judged individually, then you should also see the logical hole you’ve dug yourself that leads me to think of you as “an infant flailing blinding and ineffectually at a circling wolf.”

You can not believe that all liberals and conservatives are mentally ill, and then purport the work of a liberal is valid evidence in proving that conservatives are mentally ill. Doing so, is what we logicians call a fallacy. (There are no “”if’s” or “but’s”, you’ve taken “if’s” and “but’s” away from the table by establishing “all.” He is a liberal, therefore he is mentally ill, he is your evidence that conservatives are mentally ill, therefore your evidence is from a mentally ill source.) Engaging in this fallacy renders any argument on the matter that you propose to be instantly untrue, and invalid. Hence, “flailing.”

Now then, backtracking from this point and retreating in to the view that “of course all people can’t be lumped into categories like this, he’s an exception.” Is instantly acknowledging the validity of the point I was making in the first place, which is that you can not dismiss and marginalize people based on their view being different from yours, you have to approach people from the starting point that they may have something valid to contribute and amend according to personal experience.

So, you find yourself with two choices, stubbornly cling to the notion that generalizing is correct, or acknowledge that it isn’t. Stop flailing and look the wolf in the eyes, or continue blindly flailing until you tire yourself out. I’ve no further influence on the choice, you have to make it. I’ve done all I can to help you understand. I wish you luck in the future and hope the wolf doesn’t win.

When I speak of mental illness, I’m not necessarily talking about total, incapacitating insanity. The comment about liberals also being mentally ill was pretty much meant as a joke, but an objective analysis will find that U.S. liberals are very conservative when it comes to the socio-economic system of capitalism. I’m sorry if that offends you, but yes I do consider it a mental illness of sorts when someone is immune to logic and reason and continues to cling to a belief just because they are emotionally attached to it and their ego is too fragile to admit being wrong. Also, mental illnesses can be cured. My main point is that we absolutely DO have to change the minds of the working class majority to a significant degree and we DO have to confront an implacable enemy; that enemy is the capitalist system and the bourgeois class in control of it. I mean, that is the reality of the situation as I see it. That’s also how Albert Einstein, another socialist, saw things as well.

Also, you don’t know me at all. You think you know who I “listen to” and how I vote? I’ll reveal one thing about myself: I don’t vote at all. There are various intellectuals that I admire and I carefully consider their opinions on important matters, but I make up my own mind about things. I don’t always agree with them on everything. If you don’t want to call it a mental illness, then it is at least a real dumbass who just takes orders without question and can’t think for himself.

Finally, it sounds like you’re the one doing the ranting with your goofy fucking analogy about a circling wolf. If taking a stand for my principles in the cause of absolute freedom for the working class makes me a bad person, then I’ll just continue to be a bad person.

“I do consider it a mental illness of sorts when someone is immune to logic and reason and continues to cling to a belief just because they are emotionally attached to it and their ego is too fragile to admit being wrong”

You certainly do prove to be compelling evidence for your point of view.

“The comment about liberals also being mentally ill was pretty much meant as a joke, but an objective analysis will find that U.S. liberals are very conservative when it comes to the socio-economic system of capitalism.”

One of my favorite sayings is “You can ignore anything someone says before the word “but”.” As a side note, the chief complaint of socialists is that capitalism does not factor social concerns, and is thus profit driven. Therefore, it is not a socioeconomic system like socialism. It is a purely economic system in it’s original form. Social Market Economic systems are a capitalist socioeconomic system, however pure capitalism itself is not a socioeconomic system. Like I said, know what your fighting.

“If taking a stand for my principles in the cause of absolute freedom for the working class makes me a bad person, then I’ll just continue to be a bad person.”

Didn’t say anything of the kind, I said marginalizing your opposition as mentally unsound purely because they do not agree with your point of view is limiting, offensive, ineffective and places you squarely on the path to defeat. That you think your a bad person was evident the moment you opened your fingers to typing your first post here. That you think people in general are bad was equally evident as you obviously feel that being a person, you feel you represent the breadth of humanity and thus by extension, all of humanity must therefore be as you say “bad.” Or rather, that there is a choice to be better than you are and you feel your making that choice by fighting your perceived evils and anyone who doesn’t see the “obvious truth” that you do is fundamentally flawed.

You see, you and I are different in this. You seek freedom for the working class, or rather the group of people you feel is most justified because you identify yourself with that group. You can not see the Forrest because your too busy looking at the trees.

I seek equality, freedom and prosperity for ALL people, not simply one group who I’ve decided is in some way better than other people. I seek to bring these principles of equality, freedom, justice and prosperity to society as a whole.

Alas, you will not understand because, as you said some people are just immune to logic and reason and will continue to cling to a belief because they are emotionally attached to it and their ego is too fragile to admit being wrong. You understand the crux of my point, but can not relate yourself too it, because you see yourself as above it. “Other people” are prone to this foible, not an enlightened individual such as yourself who can see the “truth.” Don’t worry to much about it, I’m just one of those mentally handicapped, emotionally involved idealogs who can’t admit to being wrong because my ego is too fragile, so I’ll just go back to my private jet and rant goofily while I think up new ways to be vicious and lording to working class people somewhere.

[…] openly anti-worker position of somebody like Ron Paul for a path to liberation. The Red Scare and McCarthyism, therefore, never really ended, and Woody Guthrie became another victim of the falsification of […]

[…] is a piece of cake compared to the Venetian one. All that withstanding, though, isn’t it still Yuri Gagarin who deserves all the credit? Wouldn’t this be a good topic for a free class in Charm City? And if […]

[…] to as Wall Street, it had been renamed after the revolution to Rosenberg Street, honoring the famous martyrs of the 1950s. It was a location that had been of great symbolism in the tumultuous years of the recent […]

[…] predictable. Then we find Space Exploration Day. This is a bit more interesting given that, as previously discussed here on Selecting Stones, space exploration has only ever been a state-sponsored enterprise. Had it been left to the […]